


Oklahoma's Next Top Model

by Roshwen



Category: Leverage
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Eliot likes to be pretty, Humor, Let's go steal a fashion show part two, Multi, No stuffed alpacas were harmed in the writing of this fic, Parker and Hardison like pretty things, Strong OT3 overtones but can be read as Gen if you want, The fashion industry is horrible let's be real, Title not entirely accurate bc Eliot's clearly a bottom but who cares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 03:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16846348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: When a skeevy agency almost kills one of their aspiring models, her mother comes to Nate Ford for help. And if that 'help' includes taking as many pretty model portfolio pictures of Eliot as Hardison possibly can, then who's gonna complain? Certainly not Eliot (not much, anyway).





	Oklahoma's Next Top Model

**Author's Note:**

> So this was based on [this Tumblr post](http://innytoes.tumblr.com/post/180488364200/wheres-the-leverage-episode-where-eliot-has-to-go), which basically asked for Eliot as a grumpy fashion shoot model. I know it's not exactly the episode we all kind of want to see, but I hope it will still do something to fill the void (we were _robbed_ , I say. _Robbed_.)
> 
> (Also, the thing about models putting sand bags in their underwear and weights in their hair is true. And by 'true' I mean I found it on the internet, so it has to be true.)

‘They almost killed her, Mr. Ford.’

The woman in the booth, blond-haired, pale-faced and with a gaze like dark blue steel picks up her drink. Her hand doesn’t tremble, but Nate gets the distinct impression that this is more by sheer force of will than anything else.

‘They almost killed her,’ the woman quietly repeats. ‘They almost killed my baby girl. And no one… no one even cared. Because of the _aesthetic.’_

She spits out the word like the bitter accusation it is and Nate nods. ‘But we do.’

\---

The blown up picture of an emaciated girl fills the TV wall in Nate’s apartment. Dull eyes stare into the camera without really seeing anything, while sunken cheeks and clumps of hair as thin as a spider’s web are in shrill contrast with the picture on the glossy fashion magazine cover right next to it. There, the same girl is looking at them with big blue come-hither eyes, her cheekbones razor sharp and her luscious locks blown back by an unseen wind.

‘Poor thing,’ Sophie mutters. ‘Dream turned into a nightmare.’

‘Is that even legal?’ Eliot asks, his face hard. ‘I thought there were laws against that sort of thing. Like, minimum body weights or something.’

‘Only in Europe,’ Hardison says, shaking his head. ‘And not even _all_ of Europe. _And_ there’s rumors about people, and when I say people I mean scumbags, telling models to put little sand bags in their underwear and tiny little weights in their hair so that they can still make the cut.’

‘So Holly Green wanted to be a model,’ Nate says, ‘and the company that sold her a dream, also told her to lose weight and then lose more weight and then to lose even _more_ weight until she ended up like this.’

The room is quiet for a long moment, with all five of them looking at the screen with various expressions of contempt.

‘So,’ Parker is the first to break the silence. ‘How are we going to make them pay?’

\---

‘Sophie, you’re the agent.’

‘Aw, but Nate…’

‘Stop pouting, I know you want to be the model but we need someone to sell a dream to a guy who sells dreams himself. So you’ll be the agent, Hardison will be tech support…’

‘Excuse you? I’ll be performing _crucial_ and _essential_ intel and communications management, thank you very much.’

‘… which leaves us with a choice of two models to go in and scout out the place from the inside.’

‘Oooooh pick me pick me!’

‘Parker.’

‘Babe, that’s a bad idea.’

Parker pouts. ‘Why? I can be a model! You did a whole shoot with me, remember?’

‘I do, believe me. I do. Seared on to my retinas, that image so not likely to ever forget that, but. Mama. These models aren’t allowed to _eat. Anything.’_

‘So?’

Hardison opens his mouth, but it’s Eliot who gets there first. ‘Parker, you eat three bowls of dry cereal for breakfast, then about a dozen eggs for lunch and I swear I once saw you inhale an entire steak, complete with the salad and the fries, in under two minutes. There’s no way you’re gonna go in there and not go stark ravin’ mad with hunger within the hour.’ He smiles, the fond crinkly-eyed smile that means there’s no sting behind his words at all. ‘I’ll go in.’

‘Perfect,’ Nate grins, slamming a hand down on to the table. ‘Let’s go steal an agency.’

And launches off into the details of the con he’s got planned, which is basically a variation on the fiddle game. Eliot will pretend to be a super duper exclusive model who is agency hopping. Sophie will get the mark to offer them a contract that is way higher than he can actually afford, in the hopes that his new star is going to make him rich. Said new star will then not only abscond with all his money, but will also gather enough incriminating evidence of dirty goings-on behind the runway scenes that the entire company will be buried in miles and miles and _miles_ of red tape and, most importantly, a PR scandal that will blot out the sun.

‘Any questions?’ Nate asks, and while he looks around the room, and while Sophie is needling an already exasperated Eliot with how ‘ _you’ve dated so many models, I’m sure you won’t have to break a sweat for this con,’_ no one really notices how Parker and Hardison are suddenly looking very thoughtful for a moment before sharing a look that not exactly bodes well for unsuspecting hitters.

\---

‘Hardison.’

‘Hmm?’

‘… is all this crap really necessary?’

‘What, you mean the props? Yeah man, course they are!’

‘Right. And I get the lighting, and the wind machine although _don’t_ tell me where you got a wind machine ‘cause I don’t wanna know, but don’t tell me you’re actually gonna need a _green screen_ for a simple portfolio shoot. This is not gonna be the next cover of _Vogue,_ Hardison, it’s just gonna be a couple of headshots and that’s it.’

‘Uh-huh. Now here, hold this tomato up for me please? _Perfect!’_

‘Ooh, I really like his angry face! Very artsy!’

‘ _Damn it,_ Hardison.’

\---

‘Hardison, I’m not wearing that. It’s a speedo. I’m not gonna do a shoot in a speedo.’

‘It’s not a _speedo,_ it’s _fashion.’_

‘It’s a speedo. No. Also, Parker, I see you waving that glitter eyeshadow at me and the answer’s also very much no, you get that? _No.’_

‘But Eliot, Sophie said it’d bring out your eyes!’

‘Sophie said, hmm? Right, remind me to have chat with Sophie once we’re done at the agency and Hardison _stop yanking my underwear there’s nothing wrong with it._ No I’m not gonna wear Calvin Klein because you read somewhere that was _in,_ I’m keeping this on you hear me?’

‘Oh right, about keeping your underpants on. About that. Uhm.’

‘ _I’m not going nude, Hardison.’_

\---

But for all his bitching, once the shoot properly gets underway it turns out that Eliot? Is _scary_ good at being a model. Once the initial exasperation and _damn it Hardisons_ are over and done with, he lets himself be directed into various positions, with various props, without complaint. That tomato? With the way Eliot is holding it up, reverently gazing at it like it’s the world’s most precious jewel, you’d almost forget Hardison nicked it out of Nate’s vegetable drawer that morning.

An umbrella? Eliot holds it in front of him, peering over the rim with a playful spark in those innocent blue eyes that would almost make you forget this is the man who once took out an entire coffee bar in Belgrade for a baseball card.

An actual bale of hay? He’s an Oklahoma boy, he knows what to do with that. Just give him a pair of jeans, a hat and a flannel shirt that he can drape artistically over his shoulders and he’ll show you how it’s done, Hardison.

Sit this way, lean that way, look over here, turn around and look over there, come closer, step back, put a hand on your head and give me a twirl… Eliot does it all without complaint and with a professional, obliging attitude that makes Hardison almost wonder, but not for too long (except for the twirl. But in Eliot’s defense, Parker threw that in just because she could. He stopped himself just in time to glare at her before he saw her and Hardison’s smirk, which is when he turned around quickly, so he ‘wouldn’t lose his focus’).

The only thing that’s not a success?

‘Parker, you wanna join me?’

Parker frowns. ‘Sure? Uhm. Why?’

‘Duo shoot. They’ll like that, shows I can work with other people bein’ in the picture as well.’

‘Eliot, are you sure about this?’ Hardison asks, biting his lip behind the camera. ‘I mean, last shoot with Parker was… well. It was.’

‘Nah, you’ll be fine. Here, take off the hoodie ‘cause that tank top will do but the hoodie won’t and hold this candle.’

‘Shouldn’t the candle be, you know. On fire?’

Eliot firmly ignores Hardison’s facepalm. ‘No, because we don’t actually wanna burn this place down just yet. Now, one, two, three…’

For the first two or three pictures, this works OK. The fourth and the fifth work even better. It’s only after the first dozen or so that Hardison realizes he might be in a little bit of trouble.

Because Model Eliot? Was already slowly killing him to death with the smoldering looks, the oh-so casual hair tosses and, lest he forget, the gradual removal of clothing until by now he’s in nothing but his jeans, his shirt tossed over a stuffed alpaca and his shoes somewhere at the other end of the room. And Eliot might not be your standard shredded eight-pack dude but the man is _solid,_ with shoulders you could build a house on and arms that kind of remind Hardison of that scene in Hercules. You know. The one where the little goat dude’s tape measure snaps.

So, that’s all been happening and up until now, Hardison has been very grateful for the wind machines providing some much needed air on occasion. But now, now it’s Eliot and _Parker_ and if they don’t let up soon, Hardison might actually spontaneously combust within the next five minutes.

Take this pose, for instance. The one he’s asked them to hold for a bit because it was so _damn good,_ he just had to make sure he got the picture exactly right. Eliot is sitting on the bale of hay again, shirt long gone and hair falling almost-but-not-quite into his face, his eyes almost closed as he leans into Parker, lips already slightly parted as if he means to kiss her. Parker, dressed in a black tank top that forms a great contrast with her pale skin and blonde hair, has one hand on Eliot’s bicep and the other low on his hip and is watching him intently, almost hungrily, biting her lip as if she can barely restrain herself from pouncing on the guy.

Hardison doesn’t blame her. He doesn’t blame Eliot either. There is a flash of _something_ in his gut that _looks_ a bit like jealousy but Hardison is an emotionally intelligent and stable adult who does not get jealous at seeing the girl of his dreams almost kissing the _guy_ of his dreams.

Wait, what?

Oh.

That.

Alright then.

Oh, and now Parker is biting her lip again but looking thoughtful instead of pounce-y, which does not bode well for… aaaand there she goes, grabbing Eliot by the shoulders and pushing him down on the hay and _damn_ the man, he could at least try to look surprised instead of holding on to that intense focus that, until now, Hardison has only seen in the hairier kind of life-or-death situations. Eliot goes down, not taking his eyes off of Parker who is looking at him like he’s the Koh-i-Noor personified. One of her hands goes into his hair and Eliot obediently goes with her as she tugs, eyes falling closed and head falling back so that Hardison has a perfect view of the man’s neck and _damn_ necks should not be allowed to be that sexy.

It’s all Hardison can do to keep shooting pictures, keep working that camera because if he starts paying attention, _really_ paying attention to the two very hot people doing things that _should_ not be hot but _are,_ then he is lost.

(But the pictures he is taking? Yeah, he’s going to order a couple of extra copies of them. You know. Just in case.)

Of course, that is the moment Parker decides she is bored and goes in for the tickle attack. And Eliot is _not_ ticklish, he is _not,_ but Parker takes him by surprise so that they both go down in a cloud of hay and flannel. Parker cheers and Eliot grumbles a ‘damn it Parker’ but from the smile that’s not really managing to hide, Hardison can see his heart’s not in it.

‘Alright, alright, alright. _If_ the two of you are done Tyra Banksing it over there, then perhaps we can wrap this up? Eliot, get back on that bale of hay and take that alpaca with you, you haven’t used that yet. Parker, I think we’re just gonna do a couple more solo shoots and then we’re done, okay babe?’

Parker makes a pouty face but she gets up and moves off the ‘set’ without arguing. Hardison is just about ready to take up position behind the camera again (and pretending not to notice how Eliot is strategically placing that alpaca in front of him, because if he notices that then that means he’s looking and he’s not looking, nope, no way, he’s not), when:

‘What about diversity?’ Eliot asks, looking at Hardison with an innocent expression that Hardison doesn’t buy for a single second.

‘Div--, _what about diversity,_ Eliot?’

Eliot grins and Hardison casts his eyes to the heavens, wondering but not exactly complaining about how his life has turned out like this. ‘Get your ass up here, Hardison.’

\---

The rest of the con passes by in a bit of a blur. Which is OK, because just this once, it goes off like a dream: the agency buys the ‘fiddle’ AKA Eliot without question, Hardison performs a beautiful but lamentably invisible financial switcheroo with the mark’s accounts and at the end of the day, the agency is nothing more than a virtual hole in the ground, with nothing left but the faint whiff of setting powder and misery.

‘I don’t know how you did it, Mr. Ford,’ Lydia Green tells the team when they’ve assembled back at the bar for the after-con-client-meeting. ‘But thank you. So much.’

‘Oh, it was nothing,’ Nate replies, sipping his drink with a satisfied smirk. ‘Really. It was the least we could do.’

Hardison nods, trying very hard not to grin into his orange soda as he thinks about the tiny folder he has expertly hidden away on his laptop. The folder containing about a hundred pictures, most of them in tasteful black and white and at least half of them not very suitable to put in a professional fashion model’s portfolio. Unless you were a very different kind of model, of course.

It turned out Parker, behind the camera, had a really good eye for lighting. And for positioning two bodies in such a way as to knock the wind right out of Hardison the moment the pictures started loading on his screen. He hasn’t shown them to Eliot yet, although he probably should at some point; after all, if he had not so graciously volunteered to play model, Hardison would not be sitting here pretending his clothes weren’t growing too tight and the air in the bar wasn’t about a hundred and fifty degrees just from thinking about a fake-ass photo shoot.

Which makes Hardison wonder. And then, when he wonders a bit more and looks at Eliot, who is sipping beer without a care in the world, he stops wondering and starts growing suspicious.

And _then_ he thinks about how Eliot let himself be directed this way and that, and put genuine (and if you ask Hardison, _way too much_ ) effort into this fake-ass photo shoot… and then he puts down his orange soda and tries not to laugh out loud, because _of course._

He gets up. Shakes the client’s hand as she leaves, smiling and assuring her that it was no problem, no problem at all, happy to help and enjoy your money. Nate sees her out, meanwhile ignoring Sophie who is on some kind of rant about models being performers and actors and how she’d like to try and see what she could do in that industry (god help them all). Parker is expertly and with great focus dissecting a beer coaster to get the fact that she didn’t get to steal anything out of her system, but she stops as she sees Hardison walk by.

Hardison makes his way over to the bar. Casually sauntering up to Eliot, who is suddenly very interested in his beer. Which is all Hardison needs to confirm his suspicions and for a moment, he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from bursting out laughing again.

‘You know,’ he murmurs once he’s installed himself, back leaning against the bar and looking at Eliot with a bright and innocent grin, ‘Eliot, man. If you wanted us to look at you being pretty, then all you had to do was ask.’

In that moment, Hardison learns two things. One, that he was right and that Eliot _likes_ being pretty in front of certain people, if the way he suddenly flushes beet red is any indication.

And second, that he might be the only person in the world that can make Eliot ‘I will damn near kill you if you make me spill my coffee’ Spencer choke on his beer and live to tell the tale. Which feels kind of amazing, but not as amazing as the way Eliot looks up at him once his coughing fit is over, blue eyes watering, cheeks still red and looking oddly bashful despite snapping: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hardison.’

Hardison winks. ‘Pictures are upstairs, if you wanna see ‘em,’ is all he says before he turns and vanishes through the back door to Nate’s apartment, not even waiting to see if Eliot is following.

He doesn’t have to. He hears the distinctive thud of heavy boots coming up the stairs right behind him not ten mississippies later.

 

 

 


End file.
